UK hospital migrates to IP surveillance

market leader in Smart Security Solutions for video surveillance, today announced that the Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, UK, has selected DVTel from among eight video management software providers as the central platform for a newly-upgraded IP video management system.

The DVTel solution will manage data from more than 160 IP, High Definition (HD) and analogue cameras, covering the entire hospital complex and monitored from a Central Command video wall, along with dedicated workstations throughout the hospital (where required), and possibly in the future from portable devices such as an iPad. Check Your Security Ltd. performed a CCTV audit at the hospital prior to the project going to tender and was then eventually selected as the integrator for this on-going, high profile project.

Since its founding in 1852, Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) has been dedicated to children’s healthcare. Each year, there are over 170,000 patient visits to the hospital. GOSH is at the forefront of pediatric care and nurse and doctor training in the UK. For such a venerable, visible institution, the choice and installation of an advanced, highly effective security system to protect patients and staff was extremely important.

The hospital approached Check Your Security (CYS) in 2010 seeking to significantly upgrade their disparate analogue video surveillance systems. As a starting point, CYS recommended their Enterprise Audit service. The Audit evaluated every piece of security and network equipment to provide a comprehensive picture of exactly what was in place, technology capabilities, legacy equipment to be utilized in a future solution, and a list of hardware and software options to meet their current security goals.

Upon audit completion, the hospital initiated a tender process to select an integrator and the technologies to meet their advanced security goals. Jonathan Paradi, Mechanical Engineer and Compliance Manager at Great Ormond Street Hospital explained, "We had a number of DVRs and analogue cameras hard-wired back to one location. If we had an incident, in order to find and review that video we basically could only hit rewind and our security room was frozen until we found the right footage. We wanted to upgrade to a 100% IP system for greater flexibility, the ability to review video anywhere, and to be able to track action and people throughout the hospital’s public areas. We were also in need of much better video quality. We couldn’t zoom in on incidents and the image quality could not be used for prosecution."

After their selection, CYS met with GOSH officials to reach full understanding on their new system recommendations. CYS provided three or more recommendations each for video management software, cameras and network equipment. The next step was for GOSH staff to experience the recommended technologies in action at actual end user sites. Upon completion of the site visits, CYS and GOSH met to finalize the new system design and the primary choices for each technology.

GOSH selected the DVTel intelligent Security Operations Center as the central component of the upgraded IP system. "The DVTel software sold itself," recalled Paradi, "it was the most user-friendly, it gave us the flexibility we really needed and the ability to utilize existing network infrastructure and a number of the analogue cameras we already had invested in."

The hospital will deploy 160+ cameras, 70% of which are new IP cameras, but all will be on the IP network. Some camera locations require use of High Definition (HD) technology where facial / vehicle identification at a distance was needed. Those locations use DVTel brand cameras and a small number of megapixel cameras. The new system provides video coverage of the entire Great Ormond campus including all critical patient care areas.

With the project just weeks from completion, Paradi is pleased with what he has seen so far, "The DVTel system is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. The other day I challenged the guys from CYS to do a test of the video search capabilities—they found the incident I was looking for in a matter of seconds."

Paradi and staff are excited about the future and the enhanced capabilities of their new security technology, "The DVTel system seems much more intelligent in the way we can organize and manage the camera views for what we need. This was illustrated in a demo, which convinced us that the DVTel solution was a better choice for how our security personnel would operate the system. Also during the demo, camera feeds were streamed to an Apple iPad where we could wirelessly view a real-time stream. Needless to say, that technology demonstration was impressive."

"The goal for our video system is simple: provide higher patient safety." Paradi recounted an example illustrating how far the hospital has come. "We had a large, temporary generator cabled into an important clinical building, and one night the cables were stolen. Luckily, this was before the generator was being actively used to back anything up, so the situation could have been worse. We had one of the old analogue cameras looking at the crime scene, and we couldn’t read the license plate or identify the people. Had that been a DVTel camera on the new system, I’m confident I’d have the information I need. We’ve got a lot of faith in what the new system will be able to do for us."